Geocaching Australia Development List

This page lists the development ideas for Geocaching Australia. If you want something added to this list, please post your request in the forum.

For changes to the Wiki, see the Wiki Development List.

Roadmap

• Get collaborative development process going
• Move to mysql
• Single sign-on for gallery, forum, wiki, gca (upgrade all packages)
• Images, swaggies

Work in Progress

Ideology

• rearchitecture of /caches, move the remaining xml directory into object directory structure

Mind Socket

• Follow up items for basic stats ...
  • Cache results for previous months/years/anytime
• Fix mates and other searches
• Neighbours - similar to mates, but using cacher coords

caughtatwork

• (Completed awaiting deployment) Move caches found / hidden map to GCA from caughtatwork.net (thematic plot)
• (Completed awaiting deployment) Add distance and direction to cache page for GCA caches only.
• (Completed awaiting deployment) Zip gpx files for state files.
• (Completed awaiting deployment) Add a simple summary to the cacher page of how many finds of each cache type. It's actually a graph file on the All Graphs link.

Riblit

• more GPX options, eg unfound caches, etc
• look into fixing postcode database

CraigRat

• Modifications to how Movable Caches work :
  • Storage of initial waypoint

• (Completed awaiting deployment) 'Your GCA Logs' GPX file, to keep your GSAK up to date with ALL your GCA logs

• Gallery
  • (Completed awaiting deployment)Add a 'cache' gallery for the main cache page
  • (Completed awaiting deployment)Allow co-ordinate tagging of images and explore what we can do with this

Fix Bugs/Basic Functionality

• Get swaggies working (import, listing and logs)
• Bed down importing utility: protect against smart waypoint names
• Get cache updates working properly for GCA caches which have a delay between drafting and publishing
• Add locationless to gpx and anchors
• Add links to profiles and website on cacher pages
• auto-populate state field (or at least default to something reasonable)
• Fix character encoding bug
• Fix apostrophe bug in cacher name admin panel
• Fix COPA page
• Tag virtual caches
• Improve auto-archiving: unarchive a cache when a find is imported through the wizard

Search

• Advanced search/query/stats engine
• download any search as a gpx/kml, etc

Requested by The Ginger Loon:

This is a Cut 'n' Paste from the forum

Hi y'all, I'd like to request a better / more advanced search capability for GCA. I'd like to see the ability to do a keyword search not just for cache names but also within the cache descriptions and the logs.

Searching for "bananas" for example would return something like;

4 caches found with "Bananas" in the title

• He Likes Bananas. - GA5516
• I Like Bananas - GA5514
• You Like Bananas? - GA5515
• You Think I'm Bananas, You Should See My Brother! - GA5517

6 caches found with "Bananas" in the description

• Apples & Oranges - GCFRUT
• He Likes Bananas. - GA5516
• I Like Bananas - GA5514
• You Like Bananas? - GA5515
• You Think I'm Bananas, You Should See My Brother! - GA5517
• St Elmos Fire - GCWH79

7 logs found containing "Bananas"

• 15/4/03 - Geomonkeys - Apples & Oranges - GCFRUT
• 16/8/04 - Team Chaos - Tim Tam & Freddo Frenzy - GCFULL
• 25/12/05 - Mind Socket - Apples & Oranges - GCFRUT
• 1/1/06 - ideology - He Likes Bananas. - GA5516
• 2/1/06 - Swampgecko - I Like Bananas - GA5514
• 2/1/06 - Team Chaos - I Like Bananas - GA5514
• 15/6/06 - Team Piggy - You Think I'm Bananas, You Should See My Brother! - GA5517
• 15/10/03 - Gulargonthorpe Inc. - St Elmos Fire - GCWH79

---

Additional functionality

• Something that Loon wanted about making the footer text into links to recommended caches, etc
• GeoLists
• Postcode editor
• Scheduled/forthcoming cache release (coords hidden until T-0)
• combinations of "planned" lists, possibly based on mates (caches my mates are also planning)
• What do my mates recommend?
• User-friendly layout control of cache pages / logs (use BBCode?)
• Improve cache ratings (including cache of the year)
• Site map
• When logging a cache, allow a non-published note to the owner (sends PM?)
• Show nearby unfound caches after logging - improves workflow
• Automatic winners' page for finders
• Cache attributes
• World wind user selectable altitude setting (World What? Google Earth made it redundant!)
• auto-remove planned caches when found
• international caches
• tagging caches
• GPX File for all of Australia / all GCA caches

Bonus Sharing

• Moveable cache trails
• iCal feed for upcoming events/caches

Gallery

• Integrate gallery logon
• One-click photo upload from cache listings and logs

Stats

• Cache(r) half life, plot decline in find frequency
• Cache(r) find frequency. Straight, and vs diff/terr
• team v location: where different teams are putting their caches. colours represent teams
• terrain v difficulty: correlated as most people don't understand the difference?
• terrain v location: urban are are easy terrain, the ones away are harder?
• difficulty v location: opposite to above
• team cache style profiles: terrain v location, coloured blob represents team. colour gets brighter/blob larger as teams plant more caches of that style.
• hit/miss ratio v terrain, difficulty
• time to first find v location, time: hypothesis is that ttff is small in sydney but large further out. other hypothsis is that average ttff has decreased significantly over the past 12 months
• team territorial analysis - thematic plot of where each team is usually active. for each team, assign (say) 5 points for a cache that they have laid, 2 points for a first find and 1 point for a normal find. then start shading areas based on the pointscore and see what you get. should be able to see odlid dave sitting down there in jannali, dogs up in hornsby, etc

Mapping

• Area warnings, eg Lane Cove National Park
• User correctable maps to improve quality
• Integrate GPSBabel to support zillions of formats

Hosted sites

• Database-driven blogger which makes it easy to make websites
• Aggregate comments to one page to make a community
• Links into geodashing, confluence points, etc, not just secondary site
• Autotext in comments, eg replace i! with i!, team names with links
• Auto cross-links between stories (perhaps as part of autotext, prompting bloggers to comment on each other's stories)
• Summarise comments across sites
• Auto-populate comment username